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December 10, 2013

NASA discovers an ancient lake on Mars

Dear followers,

after many months on Mars, the Curiosity rover reveals its major discovery which could change the space field research. Actually, the space rover has revealed the evidence of an ancient lake with water that could plausibly be described as drinkable. This validates the first analyses performed and published few months ago: the first scoop of soil analysed by the analytic suite in the belly of martian rover reveals that fine materials on the surface of the planet contain several percent water by weight.

This discovery might emphasize the probability of an ancient life on the red planet; “If we put microbes from Earth and put them in this lake on Mars, would they survive? Would they survive and thrive? And the answer is yes,” said John Grotzinger, a Caltech planetary geologist who is the chief scientist of the Curiosity rover mission.

As described in the science paper, "A Habitable Fluvio-Lacustrine Environment at Yellowknife Bay, Gale Crater, Mars", the aqueous environment found on the red planet was characterized by neutral pH, low salinity, and variable redox states of both iron and sulfur species. C, H, O, S, N, and P were measured directly as key biogenic elements, and by inference P is assumed to have been available. These results highlight the biological viability of fluvial-lacustrine environments in the post-Noachian history of Mars.

We should have more details in the next days and months, so stay tuned